Right before we left New Bern, a winter storm covered the marina in an inch of sleet and ice.  Notice the lack of footprints.  No one in the marina was getting off a boat.

Most of the Waccamaw River passes thru cypress swamp.  In the winter it is barren, gray, but strangely beautiful with the leafless trees draped in Spanish moss and water everywhere.

These two pictures show the sandy beach where we anchored in Thoroughfare Creek off the Waccamaw River.  The first picture is in the warm weather when we stopped.  The second is the next day with a bit of snow on both the beach and the boat.

There are near endless acres of salt marsh along the Intracoastal Waterway.  Here north of McClellanville they stretch farther than the horizon and glow in the early morning sunlight.

Irish Eyes was anchored a half mile away down the long straight creek just to the left of this photograph.  Bill brought the dinghy up here to an abandoned rail line now converted to a walking trail to begin his three hour walking trip to Home Depot and Food Lion.  To get under the pipeline he had to take the outboard motor off the dinghy.  Once past the pipes and hemmed in by rocks, he unexpectedly found his dinghy being drawn toward these these two whirlpools with no motor on the dinghy.  Homer said Odysseus had a similar problem.

Hello from Bull Creek near Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.  We are anchored here for a few days waiting out some windy weather before we go to Thunderbolt Marine just outside Savannah for repairs.

Bill and I had talked for months about what we were going to do this winter and spring on Irish Eyes.  The rules for entering, staying in, and leaving the Bahamas seemed to change on a weekly basis.  Bill was fairly determined to again visit the lovely warm waters of the Exumas.  I was more hesitant but could consent to travel along and see what happens.  Our other option was to cruise the Florida Keys.  Either way taking the boat to Miami would be the first step

We decided to leave after the first of the year.  The family came for a short visit between Christmas and New Year’s Day.  One of the grandchildren was recovering from Covid, and her family only stayed one day with us.  The other family stayed and helped us sail our 22-foot sailboat, Canary, in the Watauga Lake Sail Club’s New Year’s Day Frostbite Race.  With twelve boats competing, we won, and the story was carried by the local papers and TV stations.  It was a fun time.

January 13^th was the target to leave our land-home.  It took a while to first put Christmas away.  It took even longer to pack the very warm clothes, the warm clothes, the less warm clothes, the cool weather clothes and finally the summer clothes that we would need on this trip.  Then, everything we would need for five months had to be packed into our Ford Expedition.  Lastly, the houseplants had to go to their home away from home.  The driving trip was uneventful, and we arrived in New Bern after dark.

Our next task was to move the things we would need on this trip from the car to the boat and to take the things we would not need for five months from the boat to the car.  Bill flushed the antifreeze out of the boat’s water tanks and changed the antifreeze in the engine.  He worked on “The List” of things that needed fixing and wrapped our portholes and overhead hatches in plastic to retard cold weather condensation and dripping.  I made several grocery-store trips to purchase food for the next few weeks filling the freezer, fridge, and lockers.  During our first weekend in New Bern a storm with gale force winds and accompanying rain passed through.  The following days brought us clear and warmish weather.  That short, pleasant spell ended with winter a storm with its wind, freezing rain, sleet, and snow.  Finally on Sunday, January 23, with a little of the ice and sleet still on the boat, we untied the dock lines and left.

It was cold but warm enough to melt the last of the ice off the boat as we traveled down the Neuse River to our usual first night anchorage, Adams Creek.  From there until we got through Myrtle Beach daytime temperatures were in the 40s and nighttime temperatures were comfortably above freezing.  We stayed warm in the cockpit in long underwear, sweaters, down jackets, and wooly caps.  Down below our bus heater kept the interior in the 70s, and that warmth remained through suppertime.  Blankets in the v-berth and a 12V bunk heater between the sheets and mattress kept us warm at night.  But… getting out of a warm bed into cold clothes each morning was a challenge to my courage.

In the Waccamaw River behind Pawley’s Island the weather changed, and we spent two days idle, anchored in the cypress and gum swamp waiting out the snow and wind.  Those days were our coldest days of this year on the boat.  We awoke the first day to snow in the air, an inch of white stuff on the boat’s decks, wind, and 33° outside.  The next morning was colder; 25° outside, 33° inside, but thankfully no more snow.  We spent most of the first cold day in bed under a pile of blankets. warm, reading, watching movies, and hibernating.  In hindsight, it was a pleasant change to be at anchor with nothing to do after weeks and weeks of holiday and boat busyness.  The second and coldest morning we started the engine, turned on our bus heater, put on five layers of clothes, and resumed our journey south.

We passed Georgetown, crossed both the North and South Santee Rivers, and we were nearing McClellanville when the wind picked up.  With shallow water ahead and low tide approaching, we turned around and anchored in the South Santee River in a well-protected spot.  The next morning at high tide we passed through the shallow bit, reached the Ben Sawyer Bridge at Sullivan’s Island exactly at a scheduled opening, passed through Charleston Harbor, arrived at the Wappoo Creek Bridge minutes before its next to the last afternoon opening, and anchored in the Stono River.  As we were anchoring in the Stono River, I heard an alarm I have never heard before.  I asked Bill what it was, and he calmly told me it was the engine compartment fire alarm!  A bolt that holds the alternator onto the engine had broken, and the alternator was just hanging by its still turning belt.  The belt was smoking, but nothing was burning.  Stopping the engine stopped the smoking.

That evening with some internet research, Bill found a Home Depot store in West Ashley with an exact metric replacement bolt two miles from our anchorage.  Bill wrote down the walking directions, we launched the dinghy, and off he went looking for a spot to land the dinghy.  I stayed with the boat.  My job was to worry about both Bill and the boat.  I did my job quite well.  Hours later, Bill returned with the replacement bolt and got the alternator back up and running.  While he was working on the alternator, Bill discovered a leak in the refrigeration system.  Darn [not the real words].  It is always something on this boat.

After spending that afternoon and half the next morning trying to find someone to work on the refrigeration in Charleston and failing, Bill called Thunderbolt Marine outside of Savannah.  Thunderbolt Marine was too busy with other jobs work on our problem, but they gave Bill a name and phone number of a sub-contractor who will meet us at 9am on Tuesday, February 8 in Thunderbolt Marina.  With that promise in hand, we fueled the boat in Beaufort and moved to Bull Creek behind Hilton Head Island to wait three nights at anchor until Monday when we will go to Thunderbolt Marina to meet the promised technician on Tuesday morning.

Hope everyone is warm and well.